Training: A culture of continuous learning

Most new hires attend training at Deloitte University within his or her first year of working at Deloitte. Why? Because we value the quality and depth of training that can happen in a truly immersive environment like Deloitte University. In addition, we offer many other training options from conferences to milestone training to day-to-day mentoring.

The professional services industry typically requires a unique skillset. To succeed, most of our professionals have to cultivate and maintain strong relationships. They need a deep understanding of whole industries and of client issues and needs. Above all, they need to be responsive to a rapidly changing business landscape, and open to learning and growing.

In fact, our CEO, Cathy Engelbert, regularly reminds people that one of her key beliefs is “never graduate.” Given the pace of change and disruptive technologies that are being developed every day, Cathy notes how important it is to be a lifelong learner:

I think the world is changing so exponentially that you want to have a mindset of ‘never graduating’ — always expanding your skillsets. Only when you’re driven by curiosity, can you be unafraid of the exponential change around you. You’re not defined by any one success or failure—because every experience is an opportunity to learn and to keep growing.

With this encouragement from the top, we want all of our professionals to be dedicated to developing themselves. We provide them with opportunities for continuous learning based on the 4Es:

Exposure: Learning through networks, communities of practice, and peer/mentor relationships

Environment: Resources and tools that reinforce and extend the learning

With that framework in place, we provide support in every way we can. Tuition reimbursement enables those qualifying professionals to develop the skillsets most important to them. A wide range of internal programs — like Up Your Game — are designed to help professionals achieve the next level of growth. Internal transfers can help Deloitte professionals gain exposure to different parts of the organization, and our commitment to inclusion as well as our Inclusion Councils mean that every professional at Deloitte has the opportunity, every day, to learn from people who come from a different background, have different lifestyle preferences, or who have made different life choices. There are even ongoing learning opportunities for our alumni, who are no longer working at Deloitte, but who we consider colleagues for life.

Professionals can take advantage of hundreds of formal programs offered across Deloitte throughout the year.

Opportunities

It’s likely you’re a driven person, which means there are lots of places you can work. Deloitte, however because of our size, reach, diversity of services and resources, is able to develop tools and pursue new service areas that create interesting opportunities. Here are three examples:

Technology tools: Deloitte’s investment in analytics tools helps professionals by reducing the time they spend doing rote tasks, like scouring documents, and increasing the time they spend applying insight and working alongside clients. It’s not only more meaningful to our clients, it can help you progress faster in your career.

Leading edge: Deloitte is on the leading edge of advanced tech like mixed reality design experiences, machine intelligence, and blockchain and how those apply to business. But because these technologies are in their infancy they provide early opportunities for technically inclined employees to imagine what's possible and bring it to fruition.

Ownership: At Deloitte, we encourage our people to own their careers. What does this mean? As you learn, grow, and expand your network and skills, opportunities may arise in other areas of our business; possibly domestic or international. As you work, you can develop your specialty and zero in on what's most compelling to you. Because Deloitte is large, you can explore and pursue your career interests without going elsewhere.

Networking

What you know is important. But who you know and how you connect with people can create an impact throughout a career. Deloitte encourages networking within Deloitte and outside of it. Moreover, building your network can help you get staffed on a project you’re interested in, or connect with a community giving event you find satisfying.

Mentorship & coaching

At Deloitte, coaching is both a formal role and an informal activity supported by the collegial environment and open door policy. A coach or mentor helps identify and develop an individual in his or her areas of strength, examines performance, and advises on professional development across projects and over the course of a career.

Additionally, we have a “local” emphasis – having more meaningful development discussions where and when the work occurs versus an annual, centralized process. And we provide insights, not assumptions—instead of a summary “rating” at the end of the year, we aggregate performance snapshot data a few times a year into scatterplots that allow our people to see how they compare with their peers. The scatterplots assist with compensation/promotion decisions, promote trust, provide honest performance insight, fuel more transparent check-ins, help us spot people at risk for low performance, and support conversations related to continuing professional growth.

By reinventing performance management, we believe that we’ve created a system that recognizes our people for their strengths, helping them stay engaged and passionate about their work, and supports ongoing development conversations.

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